WINTER GAINS: 5 TIPS FOR SERIOUS MUSCLE GROWTH

While the spring and summer may be the ideal time to lean out and flex the summer body, there is one time of year that’s absolutely made for putting on size and bulk: the winter season. To do this, however, you can’t just climb into a cosy nook and hibernate. You need to make two things happen to get it right: train hard and heavy, and eat like a beast.

You will have a hard time dieting because you’ll have no motives to do so. Unlike in the summer when you have to worry about love handles protruding out from your tee, you can cover up the buldge with layers during the colder months. We both know you’re not going to commit to a diet so might as well not bother with that. What you can do is to use it to your advantage. Use the food to fuel the bulk you want to gain, and when you want to lean out come summer, you’ll have an even more impressive physique.

If this sounds appealing to you, here are a few ways you can go about it.

GOING IN WITH ALL GUNSBLAZING

Go big on compound lifts. Perform sets of Russian deadlifts, dips, close grip benches, basically anything that makes you push weight. This will make you bigger and stronger in the process. It’s recommended to do five sets for your main exercise. Doing so will allow you to use heavier weights and really work on the fast-twitch muscle fibers.the fast-twitch muscle fibers, and it works hand-in-hand with the other training tips that are coming up.

MAXIMUM RETURNS

So you just dropped off a heavy set of fives on the squat. Instead of simply moving on to the next exercise, drop the load by 5% to 10% and continue hitting fives for another 1 to 3 sets based on how you feel during the workout. This is awesome to accrue more muscle and make sure you spend more time on the exercises. It’s like getting the maximum returns out of your investment.

ADASH OF STRENGTH-AEROBIC TO THE MIX

The strength-aerobic method is a system that allows you to develop both slow and fast twitch muscle fibers in just one session. For you can’t perform a lift without getting both slow- and fast-twitch fiber recruitment. But by changing the performance of an exercise slightly, you can focus more specifically on either the fast- or slow-twitch fibers.

For this, begin with something that will make it seem like it’s ripping you apart; like big lift squats or bench presses. Push the weight on heavy sets of fives, until you fall flat. From there, drop the weight substantially and focus on tempo training. This is an awesome tool, because it’s going to preferentially develop slow-twitch muscle fibers.

LOW AND STEADY DOESNOT ALWAYSWIN THE RACE

It’s winter so it’s best if you get out of there as fast as possible. So you’ll have to work fast. And it makes sense for a lot of guys who want to bulk up go slow with it.

Try something like this: put a more nervous-system-based program featuring more sets, fewer reps, longer rest periods in on one part of the workout. On the other, you have a more metabolic-focused program with fewer sets, more reps, and shorter rest periods. If your goal is to get strong like a powerlifter, you might want to rest for 3, 5, or even as long as 10 minutes between sets so you have time for full recovery of the nervous system. However, if your goal is to just get huge, you need to shorten those rest periods considerably and get on with it.

LOW-INTENSITY CARDIOSFOR INTENSE MUSCLES

You may have seen some of the biggest bodybuilders do some form of low-intensity cardio. While it definitely keeps excess body fat at bay, it does something else that’s important too; it builds your peripheral vascular network.

See it like this: we need to eat protein to build our muscles, but how do you actually get stuff like protein, or oxygen, into your muscles? The answer is blood. And how do you get more blood to your muscles? You create a vascular system designed to get blood there more effectively. Low-intensity cardio is great for this sort of cardiac development, but it’s also powerful for developing your vascular system. After all, what’s the point of building all this new muscle if you don’t have the means to support it?

As a newbie, putting on size is relatively easy. If you never push yourself in the gym, it feels as though just thinking about lifting and eating enough food allows you to pack on muscle at an appreciable rate. But someone who trains is not as lucky. You exhaust your newbie gains, and must pull out the big guns in your programming. Use these tips and we guarantee you’ll put on some bulk this winter season.

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